Phoenix Park, Saturday September 20th 2014.
Race Report by Mark Mc Daid.
Was an overcast morning when left for the small journey to the Phoenix Park, with wet ground from the rain the night before. Once I arrived inside the Park, I started to enter into a running mind set/mode. Going through a pre-made up strategy for the race ahead. With it been the Half marathon pacing was extremely important. I was now on my way, jogging to the Start area. I was surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of runners like myself all eager and waiting to run this Half marathon race. With not feeling the best and lacking running energy I put myself into the second wave, where I felt I could have a more enjoyable less pressured run surrounded by other same pace runners.
The time was just a few minutes after 10am and we were off. I warmed into the first few kilometres but was still not settling. I saw a familiar face past the 3mile mark shouting me on, none other than Nick Melody. I was shaking my head to him but he encouraged me to keep plugging away as we headed towards the Castleknock gate. Just before the 5mile mark and the road down to Farmleigh I was again cheered on by Brenda Egan. The route went through Farmleigh which for me was unusual as I have never ran through it before and onto Tower road. We went back into the Park by the Knockmaron gate where I heard Ann Higgins cheer me on by the 7mile mark. At this stage I was over half way and I started to count the kilometres/miles down from here.
Going down Chesterfield avenue covered the next 3 miles. Half way down I spotted Nick again calling on me to keep it going. I was more upbeat passing him this time around. Finally reaching Parkgate Street was the 10mile mark. My famous ‘only’ 3 miles to go from here came into play. Just as I got around the corner Paul Duffy ran up beside me and asked how things were going ‘hanging in there’ was my reply (him off on his warm down run with me still having 3 miles to go). Conyngham Rd up to Chapelizod Gate was pretty tough; you just had to hang on in there.
I was glad to get back in the park again where there was a mile and a half to go. I picked my pace up by whatever energy I had left, as was nearing the end, getting closer and closer to the finish line. Ann was there for the final cheer at the turn onto Furze rd. to push me on for the last 500metres to the line. I finally made it over the finish line, the Half marathon completed. My legs were tired and were sending me in different directions. As was walking through Sandra Armstrong greeted me and I got a big name calling cheer from Aileen, Nick and Aggie. I was grateful to have got to the finish line. I bumped into Denis who was extremely happy with his finishing time but not his old runners. Nearly opting to wearing his new ones for the race. He can proudly retire them now, and look forward to more PB’s in his new runners. A great day of running and accomplishment to all who ran and a special thanks to our club’s supporters along the route!
Apologies put we couldn’t get a complete list of the Sportsworld results due to issues with the available results sheet for this race.
Individual times can be found at both:
http://www.tdl.ltd.uk/race-results.php?event=1777
http://dublinmarathon.ie/results/
